My first bees

I've been wondering for the last week or so whether we had left things too
late this year, and mentally preparing myself to start beekeeping next May
instead. However, this morning Thomas O'Neill from
Burnham Beekeepers
rang me up to tell me he had collected a small swarm from a tree in
Cossington, about
12km away on the other side of the Levels. Ten minutes later, he turned up
at my house in his big van. Inside the van was a small cardboard box draped in
an old blanket, buzzing much less than I thought it would. We headed
off to the apiary site, tipping the box over the brood box and brushing the
stragglers in. Within minutes they were fanning by the entrance, sending out
the Nosonov pheromone to
signal 'come on in' to the others.

I'm really pleased at all this, but
the next few days are rather critical. They might stay, or they might go.
I'm going to be leaving them well alone for a week to settle in.
However,
they are likely to be pretty hungry at this point, so
Jamie and I went to
the local supermarket to get a block of fondant for them in case they
they don't get enough food quickly enough from their new environment.
Jamie is visiting this weekend and has been co-opted into beekeeping. His
first experience of it was just after he'd put on his bee suit —
a man driving by shouted at us that 'it's not Hallowe'en yet!'. Nice.

Anyway, the new hivemates seemed pretty happy four hours later when we
put the fondant in, still fanning away.
That, together with all the blackberry blossom and other food sources
around the apiary site that Thomas noticed earlier, should provide
them with enough.
Fingers crossed they decide to stick around.